So it starts again. Hans Rittinghausen noticed it a few days ago. He always notices that a few days before the official numbers go up. Rittinghausen operates four test stations in the Starnberg district with his wife and another couple. And when Rittinghausen looks at the numbers of the past few days, it’s no wonder, which is now also reflected in the seven-day incidence for the district reported by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI): The number of cases is rising rapidly.
On Monday the value reported by the RKI was 491.2 – around 200 points higher than in the days around Holy Three Kings. And there was also enormous movement in Rittinghausen’s test statistics at the beginning of January. Since the beginning of the year, about 0.9 percent of all tests in his four stations have been positive, he says. At first glance, that may not sound like much. But compared to last December, this value has tripled – and because more tests are being carried out again, the absolute numbers are also increasing.
A trend that was of course also noticed with concern in the district administration. The district has a comparatively good vaccination rate, and with booster vaccinations you can make much faster progress than anywhere else. Nevertheless, the numbers are now increasing. The reason for this is clear: “That is of course Omikron,” says press spokesman Stefan Diebl. As in the rest of the world, the virus variant is on the advance in Starnberg and now accounts for almost 14 percent of all new infections.
In the surrounding districts, too, the number of cases has recently risen significantly: Landsberg am Lech reported a value of 443.7 on Monday, in Fürstenfeldbruck the value was 388.2. Other districts such as Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen or the last badly shaken region Weilheim-Schongau, in which even a partial lockdown was imposed, are well below the Starnberg level with values below 300. Nevertheless, with a view to the rising incidence, Diebl emphasizes: “This is not a Lex Starnberg.” Despite the current high number of infections, the health department is still able to keep up with the tracking of contacts.
The authorities are now looking at the schools with concern. Because during the Christmas holidays these did not contribute to the infection process, now that lessons are starting again and many students are coming from vacation, the numbers could also rise sharply in educational institutions, so the fear. The schools have therefore asked their students to come to class on Monday, freshly tested, so all hell was going on at Hans Rittinghausen’s test stations.
In general, the number of tests has increased significantly after the quiet around the turn of the year. Often times, testing is the only way to determine if Omikron is infected. Because because people who have been vaccinated twice or even better often have few or no symptoms, they usually only notice that they are infected when they take a corona test.